


Thoughts When It Gets Dark

by Rick Rowling (orphan_account)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: But like i was super tired when i wrote the first draft and posted it there so it's a mess, Love Triangle, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Unrequited Love, but it goes in three directions, i'm famous for my messiness, polyamory would be a brilliant solution but alas. it's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Rick%20Rowling
Summary: Gilbert, Roderich, and Elizaveta reflect individually on their lives and what exactly they all mean to each other.





	Thoughts When It Gets Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on an old account on an old website after writing it in a total sleepy daze, on a dare. It was full of typos and in general made very little sense, but people still seemed to like it for some unfathomable reason. Then I reread it and actually thought it was worth rewriting, so I did. Here we are. Love you.

They had loved each other for years. But love is a complicated thing.

Gilbert had always loved Elizaveta. He loved her as his best friend, since the beginning. Even when they were rivals, but more than ever once they got close. But Elizaveta couldn’t stay by his side having fun forever. She couldn’t pretend to be someone else for her whole life. But was this new person who wore dresses really who she was? Gilbert didn’t know. He didn’t know if she still wanted to be his friend even after she left him. He didn’t know if she still cared for him, but he was sure he didn’t feel the same way he did.

Gilbert never stopped loving her as a friend. And he thought, years later, that she became more to him. She became much more, even though she left her old self behind. Gilbert doesn’t tell anyone, though. He doesn’t even admit it to himself. He tells himself he’s fine alone, that he’s happy. He doesn’t need other people. He’s too awesome on his own, too strong to be reliant on another for his source of happiness and love. If he feels alone, it’s the feeling that’s wrong, not the situation. He’s not lonely. He doesn’t need anyone. And his friend has the love of her life to take care of her, so she doesn’t need anyone either. Except.

Is she lonely? Is she happy? Does she love him?

Gilbert doesn’t know. But he knows he can’t change anything.

Gilbert loved Roderich, didn’t he? No. Surely he did not love the one who wanted to take his best friend away forever. Except, he did. He laughed at him, made fun and tired to humiliate him, out of spite and bitterness. But there was more to it than that. When he realized he couldn’t fight his feelings there was no denying it, he couldn’t deny his attraction. He couldn’t deny anything, no matter how hard he tried. And this was how he knew he would always feel.

Because the two he loved were in love with each other. And they were happy. And they hated him. Both of them were better off without him. Besides, he never wanted a lifetime commitment. And they did. They were perfect for each other. And he was supposed to be alone.

Elizaveta grew up never knowing who she was. Gilbert was her friend, but she was not like him. She didn’t know why, but eventually it was he who helped her realized she wasn’t who she’d always thought. But when she knew, could she still be his friend? She didn’t know who she was. Not until she fell in love again. She met Roderich, and he was so different from Gilbert. He was so different, and he took good care of her, and she was always able to protect him. Elizaveta loved Roderich. They both seemed to be what the other needed. And she was happy.

But Elizaveta couldn’t forget who she was, or at least, who she might have used to be. When she looked in the mirror, and saw herself in those dresses he bought for her, she didn’t feel like herself… She knew she was made for more. She was born to fight, and now, what was she doing with herself? She had forgotten a huge part of herself, and she missed that. She also missed him, Gilbert, her best friend in the world. She loved Gilbert. Even as she loved her husband—and she did love him—she loved Gilbert. Her first friend, her enemy, the gateway to her true childhood self. The part of her that used to mean she would always be alone. The part she forced herself to give up, because it was too much.

Roderich loved Elizaveta. They seemed so right for each other. She was always ready to fight for him, and he cared for her deeply. He loved the person she became as she found herself, but he always felt like she was longing to discover something more. Something he couldn’t understand.

Maybe a part of her still belonged to the one she had left behind when they married. He felt jealous at times, but he understood. He loved him too. He loved Gilbert. And he loved Elizaveta. And even still he felt so alone.

Roderich may have found deliverance with Elizaveta. Maybe they both lived happily away from Gilbert. And it seemed like they didn’t miss him or want him. But when Roderich examined his feelings, he knew he could not deny the fact that he carried a torch for him in his heart even now. And when he saw his wife, and he saw them fighting as all three of them often did, he knew she felt it too. Did Gilbert know? Did he feel it too, as they did? Were they what they thought they could never be to each other?

Did they ever know how not-alone they really were? Could they imagine what they really meant to each other? These best friends, these enemies, these bitter former lovers. Who could say how they really felt? Not they. But they felt it all the same. And each of them knew only their part of the puzzle. But what all of them knew was this:

Love was a complicated thing. But love was what they would always have for each other.


End file.
